Mehmed Orhan


Mehmed Orhan was the 42nd head of the Ottoman dynasty from 1983 to 1994. He succeeded as head of the Ottoman dynasty on 9 December 1983, following the death of Ali Vâsib. If reigning, he would have been styled as Sultan Orhan II.

Life

He was born at Serencebey Palace or at Kızıltoprak, Asia Minor or according to Hamide Ayşe Sultan in Naime Sultan Palace. He was the son of Prince Şehzade Mehmed Abdülkadir, Captain of the Ottoman Army, by his third wife Mihriban Hanım and grandson of Abdul Hamid II and his fourth wife Bidar Kadın.
Mehmed Orhan worked as shipbuilder and picture seller at an art gallery in Sao Paulo Brazil, taxi driver in Beirut and Damascus, French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon, a cemetery attendant in the United States of America and an Advisor of King Zog I of Albania.
In a 1990 feature in Life magazine, he said his legacy is "both sacred and laughable," and said, "To be Ottoman is to know how to breathe with time." He has also appeared in the book Kings without Kingdom.
He died in Nice and was buried there.

Marriages and issue

Mehmed Orhan first married Nafiye Yeghen in January 1933, annulled in 1947. In 1944, he married morganatically a young pregnant American/French Actress, Marguerite Irma Fournier, in Paris. He had a daughter by his first wife and either a son or a stepson and adopted son by his second wife:

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